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Any way to convert Avid FX work back to main timeline?
Is there any automated or fast way to pull apart th layers and work in an AvidFX comp and place all that work on individual tracks in the timeline?
We have a show where the editor refused to use AfterEffects, knew the rules and didn’t follow them, so used AvidFX on complex graphics sections. Looks awesome. Too bad it just shows up as Filler in the timeline, but you can just launch AvidFX – actually that’s a nightmare! Our work flow is to redo stills and such in AE if the editor didn’t and pull off and move up complicated effects in the timeline so the colorist and online people can move through the timeline and do their thing.
This show was sent out of house for online. They don’t have AvidFX or at least a compatible version (or something). They see the cool and complicated graphics, but the timeline just has filler, and they can’t step into it. My colleague who was supposed to redo this section didn’t. Now we’re under the gun and can’t pull apart the graphics. I’ve resolved there’s know easy or fast way to seperate all these layers back into the timeline.
Anyone know if this is possible?
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9 Replies
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No fast way.
The only thing I could suggest might be to open each one of these Avid FX comps and then select “Save Consolidated Project”. This saves the project file and media for each one. Next, have your finishing guys download the trial for Boris Red, which I think is fully functional for 30 days. They should be able to open the comps in that. Avid FX is Boris RED, just rebranded for Avid. (they will no longer be doing that re-branding, but thats another subject).
If they can’t make use of that, get a hold of the bonehead who did not follow protocol and have him sort it out.
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I had a feeling it was something like this. Too bad. I’ll try this out. Thank you.
It would be a neat feature if that AvidFX stuff could somehow reverse collapse/flatten into tracks on the main timeline. Having that work just read “Filler” alone is dreadful.
Similarly some of Sapphire’s effects does that filler thing too and it can be nightmarish when dealing with stills management, licensing and EDLs. That’s another topic too.
Thanks again.
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[Rosie Walunas] “It would be a neat feature if that AvidFX stuff could somehow reverse collapse/flatten into tracks on the main timeline. Having that work just read “Filler” alone is dreadful.
“If you have not heard, AvidFX will no longer be developed. It is not included with MC8. As I stated in my earlier message, its really Boris RED, which is still being developed by BorisFX. Seems like Avid and Boris are not partnering to the extent that they were.
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Interesting. Not a problem for my company as we primarily use AfterEffects. But I’m curious about what other Avid companies will use for complex stills moves if thy do not have AE. I dot really like having to put multiple filters on a still to get it zoomed in in, cropped, and rotated.
Ill have to read up more on 7 and 8.
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[Rosie Walunas] “Interesting. Not a problem for my company as we primarily use AfterEffects. But I’m curious about what other Avid companies will use for complex stills moves if thy do not have AE. I dot really like having to put multiple filters on a still to get it zoomed in in, cropped, and rotated.
“Moving Pictures plugin from StageTools. https://www.stagetools.com/
I’m not a fan but there aren’t very many options for Avid users.
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Forgot about that. We actually stopped installing it when we upgraded because the reconnecting of the stills in the online kept messing us up. Moving Picture was so clunky to me too. Oh well.
Thanks again!
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Unfortunately, there is no other way currently in Avid to manipulate stills at full resolution without using a plugin that links to the files externally. This is because Avid projects are not resolution independent. Any imported image gets downscaled to project pixel size, making it impossible to do “ken burns” style moves without loss of resolution, if you use Avid native resizing tools.
In version 7 and above, you can link to full res stills using AMA and use the new frame flex feature to do the moves, but it does not do rotation. It was designed more for reframing footage greater than HD, not really as a solution for stills.
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Yeah, interesting about 7 and AMA, similar to Pan and Scan and having to add 3D Warp to rotate.
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I would argue that rotate is needed for video as much as still to even out horizons. etc. from a variety of shooting situations and not only for stills.
Using Avid 3D to rotate, regardless of being linked with FrameFlex defeats the whole purpose as it can only work on the scaled output of FrameFlex (project size) as with all other effects. Stabilize for example would clearly benefit from the extra pixels…
FrameFlex is another one of those promising starts that needs to be completed to be a complete solution. We shall see what versions of 8 bring.
Michael
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